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Verse:“But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.” —Ezekiel 33:6
On the tragic morning of September 11, 2001, when the hijacked commercial airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Zacarias Moussaoui was sitting in a jail in Minnesota facing immigration charges.
He arrived in the United States in February 2001 and raised suspicion after paying large sums of cash to a flight-training school.
He insisted on receiving training to fly a “big bird” —that is, a Boing 747 Jumbo— despite an obvious lack of skills even with small planes.
His strange conduct raised much concern.
Moussaoui was arrested in Minnesota on August 16, 2001, around four o’clock in the afternoon, on charges of violating the terms of his visa.
Checking with foreign intelligence agencies, the Minneapolis FBI field office learned that Moussaoui could have terrorist connections.
The field office immediately contacted FBI headquarters in Washington, requesting approval to launch a full-scale investigation, including a search of Moussaoui’s laptop records and possessions. But the request was denied.
Not until after the September 11 attacks was the investigation authorized and carried out, confirming that the laptop contained the whole terrorist strategy! Sometimes distractions and omissions can have devastating consequences.
Many of the unsolvable problems we face today are those that were not solved while they could have been. The fact of the matter is that we tend to be more reactive than proactive. Not very many are able to foresee the harvest in the seed or the destructive fire in the spark. In the case of Moussaoui, top FBI agents believed that the field operatives were overstating their case. In spiritual matters, we are accountable before God to “sound a clear call” (1 Corinthians 14:8, NIV). God expects us not only to warn others but also to heed the warnings addressed to us. We need God’s wisdom to neither overstate nor neglect the issues we face. A word of warning spoken to the right person at the right time in a clear and forthright way may not always be appreciated, but it could prevent huge problems in the future.